Reflections, commentaries, critiques and ideas from 40 years experience in the fields of Community Development, Community Education and Social Justice. Useful tools and techniques that I have learnt also added occassionally.

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The name of this blog, Rainbow Juice, is intentional.The rainbow signifies unity from diversity. It is holistic. The arch suggests the idea of looking at the over-arching concepts: the big picture. To create a rainbow requires air, fire (the sun) and water (raindrops) and us to see it from the earth.Juice suggests an extract; hence rainbow juice is extracting the elements from the rainbow, translating them and making them accessible to us. Juice also refreshes us and here it symbolises our nutritional quest for understanding, compassion and enlightenment.

Tuesday, 5 July 2016

Twenty Years of Nuclear Weapons Inaction

Seal of the International Court of Justice(The Hague, Netherlands)

This week marks the twentieth anniversary of the landmark International Court
of Justice’s advisory opinion on the legality of nuclear weapons. On 8 July
1996 the court declared that

“There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a
conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under
strict and effective international control.”

The campaign that enabled that declaration to be made was a long and, at
times, arduous one. Nations of the Pacific Ocean were to the forefront. Japan,
as we know, was the first (and thankfully, only) nation to experience the
devastation of nuclear weapons in 1945. Following the end of WW II the Pacific
Ocean and many of its inhabitants became either guinea pigs, or were forcibly
evicted from their lands, to enable nuclear weapons testing. The US, UK, and
France all conducted atmospheric or underground nuclear testing in the Pacific.

In 1946 the residents of Bikini Atoll (in the Marshall Islands) were the first
to be relocated to allow the US to undertake 23 nuclear weapons tests. Within
just a few years the people of the Marshall Islands began to show signs of
nuclear diseases and even now are still awaiting compensation from the (US)
Nuclear Claims Tribunal.

During the 1950s the United Kingdom detonated a series of nine high
atmosphere tests at Kiritimati (Christmas Island) and other nearby islands. A
2005 study showed that sailors from the UK, New Zealand and Fiji who had
observed these tests had suffered health effects due to radioactive fallout in
either themselves or their children. A class action was begun against the UK
Ministry of Defence as a result of this study. In 2012 British veterans were
denied the opportunity to sue the Ministry of Defence on the grounds that too
much time had elapsed between the testing and them becoming aware of their
illnesses.

France then joined the nuclear party in 1966 with testing at Mururoa Atoll
despite objections from the Polynesian Territorial Assembly. Over three decades
France tested at least 175 nuclear devices, initially in the atmosphere and
then, after 1974, underground. According to doctors in the area, people living
close to Mururoa experience higher than normal thyroid and cancer problems.
French scientists have collected extensive data on water, food, births, deaths
and other demographics in the area for study on the effects of nuclear
radiation. The results have never been made public.

Opposition Mounts
Opposition to nuclear weapons testing was mounting. Indigenous leaders were
joined by activists in Australia, New Zealand and other nations around and in the Pacific. Led initially
by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) – begun in the UK – a
number of grass-roots organisations were making it clear to the nuclear powers
that the Pacific did not want their weapons testing.

By the 1970s these groups
had formed a large and increasingly active opposition movement.
Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth were by now organising
ships and yachts to sail into Mururoa waters in protest to the testing occurring
there. Even the New Zealand government took part - sending two of its naval frigates to Mururoa. The French government was becoming exasperated. Protest yachts were
boarded by French commandoes and their crews assaulted, arrested and held
without trial.

By the 1980s nuclear powered and/or armed warships from the US were being
blockaded by hundreds of yachts, kayaks and other small craft from entering New
Zealand ports. In a knee-jerk reaction to the effectiveness of opposition the
French government ordered the bombing and sinking of the Greenpeace
flagship, the Rainbow Warrior, in Auckland Harbour on 10 July 1985.
The New Zealand Prime Minister at the time, David Lange, called the sinking of
the Rainbow Warrior“…a sordid act of international state-backed
terrorism.” Lange’s government had already banned nuclear warships from
entering New Zealand waters and in 1987 enacted the Nuclear Free Zone,
Disarmament, and Arms Control Act, one of the world's first legislated such zones. Palau (another Pacific nation) had
established the world’s first nuclear free constitution in 1979.

From Opposition to Illegality
In 1973 Australia and New Zealand took France to the International Court to
test the legality of French nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific. The French ignored the Court's ruling to desist.

The action
inspired Harold Evans, a retired magistrate from New Zealand, to begin lobbying
for the International Court to be approached to declare on the legality of
nuclear weapons. Evans and others initiated the World Court Project. BY 1995
the Project was able to present over 40 declarations, the signatures of more
than 11,000 lawyers and the backing of several globally prominent citizens
(including Bishop Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama, Mikhail Gorbachev and Nobel
laureates) to the International Court’s registrar.

Oral submissions by 22 countries were presented to the Court in November
1995. On 8 July 1996 the 14 judges of the International Court – all from 14
different countries - gave their decision on seven points (one of which, passed
unanimously) is quoted at the beginning of this post.

Twenty Years On
The Court’s declaration to bring about nuclear disarmament has yet to be
fulfilled. At the time of the declaration (1996) there were around 27,700
nuclear warheads world-wide. The number was dropping (it had peaked in 1986 at
over 70,000) and today stands at over 15,000 – 93% of those being held by the US
and Russia. In 1996 six states had nuclear weapons capability (the US, Russia,
UK, France, China, India), but three more have been added since then (Pakistan,
Israel, North Korea).

Under the NATO agreement the US has “shared” nuclear
weapons with Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, and Turkey. It is thought
that a similar agreement exists between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

Todays nuclear weapons are significantly more powerful than those used on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Just one of todays bombs could wipe out Hiroshima
plus 50 more similar sized cities. The world still has over 15,000
of these! Whether it is 70,000 or 15,000 makes no difference. The number needs to be zero.

The destructive power of these weapons of mass destruction should be enough
to make them illegal. When the waste of money that is spent developing and
deploying them is added into the equation the case against nuclear weapons
becomes abundantly obvious. Global annual spending on nuclear weapons is
estimated at over US$100 billion. That's $11.4 million every hour of
every day! Surely, in a world of starvation, poor health outcomes,
unsanitary conditions and a number of other human tragedies, that is
unjustifiable in any language.

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About Me

I have almost 40 years experience working (paid and unpaid, government and non-government) in community development/education and social justice fields. I have continued to keep myself abreast of philosophies and theories in these and related fields. This blogsite will offer ideas, thoughts, reflections on these fields as well as giving some tools and techniques. I don't pretend that these will be original but I do hope that they will be able to translate some of these diverse ideas into coherent forms accessible to workers in the areas.